Last week, San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El hosted journalist Bret Stephens as a guest speaker. Stephens is well known for his militaristic views and support of the Israeli occupation, which he advances as an op-ed columnist for the New York Times and previously defended as a foreign affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I grew up attending Emanu-El; it is the synagogue where I was taught Jewish values and developed my morals as an individual. I cannot remain silent as my temple lifts up the voice of someone whose ideology stands in such opposition to the values I learned there.
Stephens has consistently used Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian rhetoric in his writing. In October 2015, he wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal titled “Palestine: The Psychotic Stage.” He referred to a “communal psychosis” in which Palestinians are gripped by a “blood fetish” to “knife Jews to death, one at a time.” In another column in August 2016, he called the problems that the Arab world faces a result of “the disease of the Arab mind,” generalizing all Arab people as “haters” consumed by anti-Semitism. Stephens’ armchair diagnosis of entire peoples supposedly justified his argument that Palestine should submit to occupation and oppression.
Beyond this, there are other problematic issues in Stephens’ writings that should have made Emanu-El hesitate before inviting him to speak on the bimah. Stephens is a climate change skeptic who has compared those who believe global warming is a problem to anti-Semites. He has argued that rape on college campuses is an “imaginary” epidemic. He has disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement and displayed outright racism, writing that there exists “no moral agency in the black community.” Stephens’ support of the Israeli occupation, which a U.N. special rapporteur called “an affront to international law,” should have been enough to prevent an invitation. His blatant Islamophobic tirades and racist, misogynist views should have sealed him off from the sanctuary.
It is because I have a deep love and respect for Emanu-El that I am calling it out now. It is where I attended preschool, Sunday school and Hebrew school. I became a bat mitzvah and was confirmed on that bimah. I loved the community so much that I returned to the third-grade Sunday school classroom as an assistant teacher throughout high school. Just as supporting Israel’s right to exist does not preclude me from advocating for the rights of Palestinians, my appreciation for my synagogue does not mean I will be silent while it gives a platform to hate speech.
Emanu-El has always taught me to question my actions and beliefs. Sunday school teachers encouraged me to examine my own practices while my rabbis were open to challenging previous scholars’ interpretations. In this tradition, I am calling into question how it has chosen to prioritize certain voices and perspectives, and I am asking my Emanu-El community to question how we respond to this choice.
I was heartened to see that Stephens’ talk drew some who maintain this stance of questioning the status quo. Before the speech, activists from the organization IfNotNow displayed banners stating, “Bret Stephens values: Pro-occupation, Anti-Islam — are not our Jewish values” and “Occupation and militarism do not belong in a synagogue.” They sang “Lo yisa goy el goy cherev,” which translates to “Nation shall not raise sword against nation.” They were met with a few shouts of “Go home” and “Get out of here” and silence from the rest of the crowd, before being escorted out by security.
Not only am I pained by Emanu-El’s decision to give Stephens a platform, I am disappointed in my community for not standing alongside those who stood up for the rights of all people.
I welcome open, productive discourse about the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, welcoming a speaker who has consistently employed racism to further his arguments is actively counterproductive to this goal. It additionally takes away the opportunity to hear from a speaker with a nuanced perspective on the Middle East. In giving the full stage to Stephens and having peaceful protesters removed by security, Emanu-El cannot claim to be facilitating dialogue; instead, it legitimized Stephens’ harmful rhetoric.
In the third-grade Sunday school classroom, one of the core values we cultivated is tolerance and respect for one another. Emanu-El as an institution stands to learn this as well. When it invites someone into our space of learning who disparages, generalizes and marginalizes millions of people, we are not a community that practices the values we teach.
If Not Now is an organizations masquerading as pro-Israel group who claim to wish to end the occupation, when what they really wish to end is Israel. That would explain the peculiar statement on If Not Now’s website: “We do not take a unified stance on BDS, Zionism or the question of statehood.”
They do not take a unified stance on Zionism or Israeli? That tells you all that you need to know about this “pro-Israel” group.
ms storey-fisher has the right to her opinions, as misguided as they might be. neither she nor the ifnotnow crowd have the right to change california law.
the protestors had every right to gather outside of the venue. but when they entered and chose to disrupt the lecture, they violated california penal code 403
Every
person who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up
any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other
than an assembly or meeting referred to in Section 302 of the Penal Code
or Section 18340 of the Elections Code, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
the organizers were nice enough not to call the police and simply had your gang of thugs removed.
and if you choose to sing a song that comes from the prophets, you should know the context
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1002.htm
this is referring to the times after mashiach. no one is expected to beat their swords into plowshares and allow themselves to be killed, just because you dont know your tanach
and one isnt going to bring mashiach by sewing discourse in our community
what you need to do is teshuvah. keep the mitzvot and then you can lecture others on “jewish values”
Ms. Storey-Fisher, why don’t you allow for viewpoint that differs from yours? What are you afraid of? Why are you so keen on everyone stepping in goose step with your comrades? What are you afraid of? Why do you feel you are ENTITLED to silence opposition? What are you afraid of? Why do you want us to become a Pol Pot Cambodia? Why do you want us to become a North Vietnam? You are a scary person, you really are
I will gaze deep into my crystal ball and make the following predictions about the past. 1) Storey-Fisher’s alma mater, Brown, had an active SJP (a Hamas franchise) chapter while she was there; 2) While at Brown, Storey-Fisher never said so much as one critical word about SJP’s genocidal demands for Israel to be destroyed. Presumably because her “Jewish values” were not offended by calls for genocide against Jews.
One cannot help but be impressed by how fact-free Story-Fisher’s judgments are. She is offended by Bret Stephens calling Palestinian murder-by-knife attacks “a communal psychosis”. Yet, what else can one call a society that collectively sponsors individual acts of murder? The fact that she objects to Stephens’ calling that a communal psychosis rather than objecting to the murders themselves, tells us all we need to know about the value of Story-Fisher’s opinions.
Storey-Fisher has the temerity to question her elders’ judgment in allowing to speak a journalist who is a columnist at the ‘New York Times’ and the ‘Wall Street Journal’ for having the sinfulness to disagree with the opinions of the holder of a brand-new bachelor’s degree, from Brown, no less. How dare he?
Brown has the reputation of being a school for the not-intellectually-talented children of the wealthy. There is no reason to believe that Story-Fisher is not an exception to Brown’s reputation as a student body of dullards. But there seems no reason to believe her thinking, as expressed above, does not reflect her being educated among wealthy dullards.
As preposterous as it is for the 21 year-old with her “profound” grasp of issues to lecture Emmanu-El on who they should and should not admit to speak in “their space”, I will do the same myself. Should the J. be devoting its columns to ill-informed sophomoric screeds seeking to censor distinguished journalists for expressing opinions not currently in vogue among undergraduates? One has to ask the J. editorial staff whether being the daughter of members of the San Francisco nomenklatura, (the claque of the wealthy and influential) is sufficient reason to be given a column?
This is not the first time the J. has published a column penned by someone with no greater qualifications than being the daughter of a member of the nomenklatura. The J. seems no longer even to pretend to represent the Jewish community, but represents only the nomenklatura – and their under-educated daughters. Perhaps the J. should print the names of the nomenklatura on its masthead so we can know whom we are actually hearing from?
The J. goes even further, allowing undergraduate children of the nomenklatura not only to have columns but also encourages those children to use their columns to spit in the faces of those of us whose families have struggled and fought, and in some cases died, to establish the Jewish State. In dealing with knife attacks by ill-informed adolescents, we consider mainly who sent them. In dealing with journalistic knife attacks by ill-informed adolescents in the pages of the J., perhaps it is time for the Jews of the Bay Area to consider who at the J. is sending them. Maybe it is time to clean house at the J. staff.
In an increasingly polarized world in which speakers are being booed off or uninvited from university stages, I believe that organizations like Congregation Emanu-el should present a broad spectrum of opinions and not kowtow to those who would listen to only one side of a discussion.
More than 300 people respectfully listed to and appreciated Mr Stephens’ perspective while 5 chose to protest the event and were respectfully escorted out. What gives these people the right to protest in side a sanctuary verses outdoors? They disturbed the audience and intruded on my ability to listen and learn.
Just one final note—there was not any “hate-speech” of any type in Mr. Stephens speech—your headline is false. He actually advocated strong for women’s and gay right in the Middle east. He supported ended the “occupation” once it could reasonably be assured Israel’s neighbor would be more like “Costa Rica than Yemen.”
Jordan Hymowitz
Dear Ms. Storey – Yes. Mr. Stephens wrote a scathing article against Palestinians in October 2015. Were you aware of what was going on in Israel in the fall of 2015? Of Mothers being stabbed to death in their kitchen in front of their children? Of bubbies being stabbed running for their lives as they went to the supermarket? Yes, societies that create cartoons and children’s shows teaching little children to stab and beat up Jews, that plaster posters of Arabs running over Jews with their cars or the correct way to stab a Jew in the back to inflict the most damage. That is a psychotic society. You went to Hebrew School? I do not think that they taught you any history of Jews or Israel, as in most Reform synagogues, you learn the warm fuzzy feel good social justice Judaism, but no Jewish history.
Too bad that your view of the world has not progressed beyond the third grade. And too bad that you cannot extend to others the tolerance that you claim to believe in.
Glad he was able to speak and share his views. This is America where all voices are heard, not just the ones you agree with. Given the opportunity, these wonderful peaceful Muslims would slit your Jewish throat in a heartbeat!! Wake-up!!
When did Jewish values include suicide? The author is a reminder how warped our young minds are and how their ignorance is a clear and present danger to the very existence of the Jewish people.